The Power of Patience
“The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” — ECCLES. vii. 8.
THE lion was caught in the toils of the hunter. The more he tugged, the more his feet got entangled; when a little mouse heard his roaring, and said that if his majesty would not hurt him, he thought he could release him. At first the king of beasts took no notice of such a contemptible ally; but at last, like other proud spirits in trouble, he allowed his tiny friend to do as he pleased. So one by one, the mouse nibbled through the cords, till he had set free first one foot and then another, and then all the four, and with a growl of hearty gratitude, the king of the forest acknowledged that the patient in spirit is some times stronger than the proud in spirit. And it is beautiful to see how, when some sturdy nature is involved in perplexity, and by its violence and vociferation is only wasting its strength without forwarding its escape; there will come in some timely sym pathizer, mild and gentle, and will suggest the simple extrication, or by soothing vehemence down into his own tranquillity, will set him on the way to effect his self-deliverance. Even so, all through the range of philanthropy, patience is power. It is not the water spout, but the nightly clew which freshens vegetation. They are not the flashes of the lightning which mature our harvests, but the daily sunbeams, and that quiet electricity which thrills in atoms and which flushes in eveiy ripening ear. Niagara in all its thunder fetches no fertility; but the Nile, coming without observation, with noiseless fatness overflows, and from under the retiring flood Egypt looks up again, a garner of golden corn. The world is the better for its moral cataracts, and its spiritual thunder-bolts; but the influences which do the world’s great work, — which freshen and fertilize it, and which are maturing its harvests for the garner of glory, are not the proud and potent spirits, but the patient and the persevering; they are not the noisy and startling phenomena, but the steady and silent operations. They are the Sunday-schools which line upon line repeat the Gospel lesson, and keep alive in our youthful millions some fear of God. They are the good and loving mothers who begin with cradle hymns, and who try to make the sweet story of Jesus as dear and as memorable as their own kind voices. They are the weekly Sabbaths which softly overflow the land, and which, when they ebb again, leave every where the freshness and the fertilizing elements conveyed in their heaven-descended tide. Patience is power. In a thirsty land, one farmer digs a pit, and as no water fills it he opens another, and as that also continues, like the well in Dothan, dry, he commences a third in a spot more promising, and a fourth, and many more, till he has tried all his territory without success, and then, chafed and chagrined, he abandons all effort in despair. His neighbour chooses a spot, and begins. No water flows, but he is not discouraged. The spade and the mattock he exchanges for the drill and the anger; and after hammering through the flinty rock for days and weeks, at last the long-sought fountain gushes, and at his threshold he secures a perennial spring, which neither feels the summer drought nor dreads the winter’s cold. And so, on behalf of some right object, one man is anxious to enlist the good feeling of humanity: and he brings his project before one influential mind after another, and he is mortified to find how drily it is received by this celebrated philanthropist and how many difficulties are started by another, — till he is ready to declare that benevolence is all a sham and every patriot a hypocrite. But, strong in faith and patience, another takes the Artesian anger. He knows that deep under our hard humanity there are tender feelings and kind sympathies. Or if it be the Church
on which he seeks to operate, he knows that under all its callousness and formalism there circulates a conscience, — there flows a fresh current of principle and love fed from the crystal river, and he is resolved to reach it. He takes the Artesian anger. “One thing I do.” Preserving his temper amid all rebuffs, and persevering amidst all impediments, he keeps urging this one object, — and at last the vein is struck — the fountain flows. Charles sees the Bible Society organized, and Carey is sent to India. Raikes sets his Sabbath-schools agoing, and Naysmith the City Mission. Sadler sees infant emancipation be come a popular movement, and Agnew finds the Church at last roused to the claims of the Sabbath-day.
January 5, 1851.